Large Cruiser

Mankyspuds

http://www.google.ie/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CD4QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FBAP_Almirante_Grau_(CLM-81)&ei=ZgfgUq_WBoaI7AaW_oCwDw&usg=AFQjCNEcdGgUg5G34qvRlVcdUBeeWJCnFA


I was fluting around the net and I discovered that the Peruvian Navy have a big old WW2 type cruiser still in service. This old girl is indeed impressive, but realistically is she of a serious combat threat to modern combat vessels? Plus completely unrelated, she must cost an arm and a leg to keep going with fuel, wages etc..

knucklehead6

Mankyspuds wrote: »

http://www.google.ie/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CD4QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FBAP_Almirante_Grau_(CLM-81)&ei=ZgfgUq_WBoaI7AaW_oCwDw&usg=AFQjCNEcdGgUg5G34qvRlVcdUBeeWJCnFA


I was fluting around the net and I discovered that the Peruvian Navy have a big old WW2 type cruiser still in service. This old girl is indeed impressive, but realistically is she of a serious combat threat to modern combat vessels? Plus completely unrelated, she must cost an arm and a leg to keep going with fuel, wages etc..

In terms of a threat to a modern ship, in a gun battle she'd probably take on and beat any ship afloat. her armour would be thicker than most ships.

Having said that she'd need to get close enough to use her main guns. And that's just not gonna happen in reality

discus

I would have thought that a modern gun battle would be won by the ship with the most accurate gunfire. Surely a more modern ship would have better Fire Control computers?

knucklehead6

discus wrote: »

I would have thought that a modern gun battle would be won by the ship with the most accurate gunfire. Surely a more modern ship would have better Fire Control computers?

Better FC computers yes, but I wonder would the 6 inchers would out range any other gun?

Beano

i'm no expert on naval warfare but i doubt she would even see what sank her if it came to a fight. A modern frigate/cruiser would sink her with over the horizon missiles. a carrier would be no contest. similarly a sub (see General Belgrano ). anything smaller would just run away.

knucklehead6

Beano wrote: »

i'm no expert on naval warfare but i doubt she would even see what sank her if it came to a fight. A modern frigate/cruiser would sink her with over the horizon missiles. a carrier would be no contest. similarly a sub (see General Belgrano ). anything smaller would just run away.

I did say that when I mentioned that in reality she'd never get close enough to use her main guns.

tac foley

Well, she certainly would not go without a fight - read

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otomat

She might be going down, but her 'children' might just be giving a post-mortem surprise to her less-well-armoured attacker.

However, most modern submarines could sink her from about 20 miles away.

Overall, the fate of the General Belgrano may well be repeated.

Shame, I love these older ships, relics of REAL naval power projection.

tac

knucklehead6

it does raise an interesting (mitty-land) question. In a pure gun battle, no air, no missiles, no subs i don't think there is anything in commission that could take her..... But what about anything afloat??

HMS Belfast would give it a bash... Nearly all the museum ship battlewagons in the US would wipe the floor with her. What other museum ships are out there, that in their hey day would have held their own?

Looking at the list on Wiki about the only other ship is USS Salem, a big gun cruiser

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum_ship

tac foley

Well, HMS Belfast had the advantage, at the time, of an early version of RADAR, but De Ruyter/Almirante Grau was extensively modified back in The Netherlands with what was then SOTA weapons systems. The OTO MELARA ASMs would quickly put HMS Belfast on the bottom.

tac

Beano

tac foley wrote: »

Well, she certainly would not go without a fight - read

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otomat

She might be going down, but her 'children' might just be giving a post-mortem surprise to her less-well-armoured attacker.

However, most modern submarines could sink her from about 20 miles away.

Overall, the fate of the General Belgrano may well be repeated.

Shame, I love these older ships, relics of REAL naval power projection.

tac

i had a read of the Otamat page before i posted. Interesting guidance system. i wouldnt fancy being the helicopter pilot who has to hover within visual range of the enemy ship for several minutes while the missile flies under him and he gives necessary course corrections to the missiles until it reaches the target. Assuming the target ship didnt destroy him (and shooting down a hovering helicopter would not be difficult) and the missile did hit the target he could end up with both ships destroyed and nowhere to land on. Its practically a suicide mission for the pilot.

Doctor14

Beano wrote: »

i wouldnt fancy being the helicopter pilot who has to hover within visual range of the enemy ship for several minutes while the missile flies under him and he gives necessary course corrections to the missiles until it reaches the target.

I think you misunderstand what mid-course guidance means - The helo is not sitting within visual range guiding in the missile. The missile itself does most of the work - a helo (or other source) can provide some updates to the missile BY RADAR as to where the target is. The missile itself has a radar tracker and will track the target itself but the tracker has a limited range - the mid-course guidance merely gets the missile close enough for its own tracker to lock on. A missile does not need mid-course guidance but then relies on the target not making major course changes during the flight time of the missile.

The major issue that the cruiser has is lack of air defence. A handful of bofors guns is nowhere near adequate for a modern battle. However, the cruiser may rely on an escort for Air Defence such as the Lupo FFs, the Aspide is a fairly ok missile system although it is still limited enough in anti-missile defence.

Beano

This is what wiki says on the subject

The limiting factor with the Otomat as incorporated in the TESEO system is that the AB-212 ASW Helo platform used for update has a limited radar range of no more than 60 km (with a 2,000 m2 RCS target, typically a frigate or destroyer), and will be hovering and stationary to allow the missile to fly under it and guide Otomat to its target. If the target ship has a medium range SAM suite like RIM-66 Standard missiles, and is aware of the danger (with radar and ESM suites), the AB-212 Helo's lifespan could be limited to mere seconds, as it is much bigger than anti-ship missiles.

TESEO system requires that the missile fly under the helicopter, allowing the engagement of only one target at a time (even if with two missiles), the missiles must be launched to helicopter and so, this one must fly practically fixed for several minutes, while the missiles must fly a longer flight path, being this launch a non linear flight path.

reading that again i was mistaken in thinking that the heli has to be in visual range. but it would be well within radar range, which in the modern missile age amounts to nearly the same thing.

OS119

Beano wrote: »

This is what wiki says on the subject



reading that again i was mistaken in thinking that the heli has to be in visual range. but it would be well within radar range, which in the modern missile age amounts to nearly the same thing.

not really, the hels only needs to pop up from the surface clutter/radar horizon, do a radar sweep to get the location of the target, transmit that position and then run away amongst the surface clutter - he can do that from 40 miles plus, and it'll take about 10 seconds to do the whole cycle. not only is no missile fired by the ship going to catch him, but no ship captain is going to fire on him knowing that a) the damage is done, and b) a missile wasted on a retreating target is a missile he can't use to try and shoot down the about-to-be-incoming swarm of anti-ship missiles the helicopter has provided guidence for.

at that point the ships survival depends on being as far away from the datum point as possible, presenting as small a target as possible, and having as many missiles as possible to defend itself - firing off missiles at helicopters it won't catch and who'se destruction or otherwise won't effect the outcome of the missile attack isn't going to be on the ships captains to-do list.

Mankyspuds

knucklehead6 wrote: »

In terms of a threat to a modern ship, in a gun battle she'd probably take on and beat any ship afloat. her armour would be thicker than most ships.

Having said that she'd need to get close enough to use her main guns. And that's just not gonna happen in reality

Purely for a laugh...

Ok, in a guns only scenario. WW2 era Peruvian Cruiser vs The Entire Irish Navy

You'd have to fancy the Cruiser at longer ranges, but, up close and personal might be a different story.

Mankyspuds

On second thoughts...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARDO :eek:

These look fearsome, and nevermind these guns below

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bofors_152_mm_gun :eek::eek:

Going up against

Orla & Ciara
1x76mm OTO Melara Cannon
2 x Rh202 Rheinmetall 20mm Cannon
4x7.62mm GPMG

Roisin & Niamh
1x76 mm OTO Melara Cannon
2x20mm Rheinmetall Rh202 cannon
2x12.7 mm HMG
4x7.62 mm GPMG

Eithne
1× Bofors 57 mm gun
2× Rheinmetall 20 mm Cannon
7.62 mm GPMG

Aoife & Aisling
1 x Bofors 40mm
2 x Gambo 20mm Cannons
7.62mm L7 GPMGs

Samuel Beckett
1xOTO Melara 76 mm cannon
2x20mm Rheinmetall Rh202 cannon
2x12.7 mm HMG
4x7.62 mm GPMG

It would be one hell of a racket all the same

knucklehead6

Mankyspuds wrote: »

Purely for a laugh...

Ok, in a guns only scenario. WW2 era Peruvian Cruiser vs The Entire Irish Navy

You'd have to fancy the Cruiser at longer ranges, but, up close and personal might be a different story.

If the cruiser has longer range guns, then why would she allow anything get close enough to return fire. The main guns on the Cruiser have a range of 26000m. The main gun on the NS ships has a range of 20000m in Armour piercing ammo. That gives the cruiser 6000m to play with.

If you change to HE the max range is 16000, with effective being 8000m.

Big guns, every time.

tac foley

The great thing about a VERY big bullet it that it is unjammable.

The target ship has two options.

1. Get out of the predicted impact zone.

2. Take it and hope to survive the impact - a British 6" naval shell, weighing 100 pounds, with a V of 2950 has 13.5 Million foot pounds of muzzle energy.

Sure, it's going to be a lot less by the time it hits you, but it will still make your ears ring, for sure.

tac

Doctor14

Beano wrote: »

reading that again i was mistaken in thinking that the heli has to be in visual range. but it would be well within radar range, which in the modern missile age amounts to nearly the same thing.

You also have to take into account radar LOS. Anything more than 25nms away and the Ship will struggle to pick it up. As was said earlier, the helo just needs to do a popup. And most SAM systems nowadays are actually fairly short-ranged. To successfully engage a surface hugging target at long range requires a fairly sophisticated and expensive missile system. When the Otomat was first designed, there weren't many and these were limited to major powers. Even nowadays there isn't a whole pile more. And helo surveillance and radar systems are getting far more sophisticated and are able to pick up targets are far greater ranges.